Hmmm...well this is kind of why I didn't think it was fair to just change all this so suddenly. I can't IRC from work...it's bad enough that I am posting :P

I can only really speak for myself, and for me, the XP were a way to challenge myself to not slack off from learning perl and to come to the site and read the posts regularly. A lot of times people have already answered questions by the time I get there, and sometimes I am just so tired or hurried that I don't have time to post...but I still tried to get here each day and try to keep up.

You're right, we don't get paid to vote in the real world, but those votes have an impact on what happens. If we were electing leaders, or voting on policies I would understand the analogy...but here we vote for posts (and sometimes people vote for or against the writer of the posts).

You may not be able to answer questions in time
(I know I never can) but I try to occasionally write an
informed post about something. (Occasionally.) I'm always
tired too. I try to pick my battles, so to speak, as they come up and as they seem important: help
out newbies in the chatterbox with site problems, or
write vroom about things I think are not working. I post
too sometimes. I don't much like receiving XP, it makes
me feel guilty. :)

Of course, I believe that if you want to earn XP, you
more than deserve it. Your posts are excellent, I've voted
up many of them! I didn't know you personally, but you've
got both explicit reputation (well-rated posts) and implicit (eg
I know that you make good posts, your nick is familiar that way).

This is a community of people, not of database entries.
When I think of reputation, I don't think of a number, I
think of a person who has posted good ideas or thoughtful
replies. I think what we are trying to get to is an XP
system that works more transparently, more in the
background, and still encourages the kinds of
posts and personal conduct that the community as a whole values.

Ada Lovelace for the palindrome
Albert Einstein for having smelly feet
Alfred Nobel for his contribution to battlefield science
Burkhard Heim for providing the missing link between science and mysticism
Claude Shannnon for riding a unicycle at night at MIT
Donald Knuth for being such a great organist
Edward Teller for being the template for Dr. Strangelove
Edwin Hubble for pretending to be a pipe-smoking English gentleman
Erwin Schrödinger for cruelty to cats
Hedy Lamarr for weaponizing pianos
Hugh Everett for immortality, especially for cats
Isaac Newton for his occult studies
Kikunae Ikeda for discovering the secrets of soy sauce
Larry Wall for his website
Louis Camille Maillard for discovering why steaks taste good
Marie Curie for the shiny stuff
Nikola Tesla for the cool cars
Paul Dirac for speaking one word per hour when socializing
Richard Feynman for his bongo skills
Robert Oppenheimer for his in-depth knowledge of the Bhagavad Gita
Rusi P Taleyarkhan for Cold Fusion
Sigmund Freud for his Ménage ā trois
Theodor W Adorno for his contribution to the reception of jazz
Wilhelm Röntgen for the foundations of body scanners
Yulii Borisovich Khariton for the Tsar Bomba
Other (please explain why)